For the third day in a row, comes the message to close the door, to spend some time within the shelter of silence, to tend my hearth. I had thought I might go outside on this day, follow Wendell Berry’s prescription into the ‘peace of wild things’, but the weather seems to be inviting me to remain inside a little while longer.

Again, the invitation in my morning mail, to close the door on that incessant and indecipherable noise, to put some more logs on the fire, to begin again to cultivate the warmth and wisdom of my heart. This bidding call is to the “deep practice” of “collecting our hearts so as to be more directly and acutely in alignment”.

I have chosen to accept this invitation to ‘create a dwelling place for wisdom’ and offer a prayer of love from my heart to the world for “such a time as this’. I’d love to imagine you joining me here…. for one or all of the practices, for just a moment of silence together or for the entire 2 and a half hour practice. (please click the link in the paragraph above to join me)

“It is important for us as contemplatives to prepare our nervous systems (and our hearts and our homes) by hunkering down into our spiritual practices more deeply than ever before. To be a presence of Love and peace in the world. The call is to stabilize, to more fully ingrain the practice of kenosis, and to ‘make more space for Wisdom’ to make her dwelling within and among us again”

This feels so resonant with what I have been feeling and needing. I especially like the invitation in the words ‘dwelling place’ (again, here are the words of the turtle). They add another dimension, a healing and wholemaking dimension, to the call to close the door and remain inside, a dimension that feels less like shrinking/retreating from and more interiorly like expansion and opening, a deepening and rooting of Love in me. Along with that deepening comes a necessary carving out of space for such a growth to occur, an emptying of the noise, a clearing of the clutter, a quieting in order to find myself again.

And as I settle in, I find my heart opens to welcome you inside its warmth.